Lenawee County volleyball tournament gets new look in COVID era

It turns out that nothing, not rain nor sleet nor even a global pandemic, can stop the Lenawee County Volleyball Tournament.

Due to the pandemic and the restrictions from the MHSAA that allows play to be going on, the tournament has been stretched out.

For the first time in recent memory, the county champion was not crowned on Saturday in one school's gym, as the county's teams were forced to play in a preliminary round of action to help set a field of finalists that would then play for the county championship at a later date.

The 12 county teams were split into three quads, hosted by Adrian, Lenawee Christian and Tecumseh with the winners advancing to the final round of the tournament, another quad meet hosted by Onsted, on Oct. 31 to decide a champion for 2020.

“I honestly miss seeing all the kids play, to see the kids from Tecumseh that we don't cross anywhere,” said Hudson coach Shelly Hoard. “We haven't seen Lenawee Christian anywhere this year or BD. There are teams we don't see anywhere else but tournaments and its really been kind of sad not to see a lot of the different athletes and coaches. I miss that, but I am thankful we can be on the floor at all.”

Adrian hosted its quad that was originally set to include Hudson, Madison and Sand Creek, but the Aggies were forced to withdraw when the whole program had to quarantine themselves earlier in the week. Addison, Morenci and Onsted were at Lenawee Christian while Blissfield, Britton Deerfield and Clinton invaded Tecumseh's gym to make up the final preliminary quad on Saturday.

To make it a quad for the championship finals, there needs to a be a fourth team, and the way the organizers came up to decide who joins the champions is a ranking system among the teams that suffered one loss in Saturday's competition.

According to Onsted coach Rhonda Hubbard, who helped come up with the format for the tournament, that leaves Blissfield and Lenawee Christian, both of whom went 2-1, and Madison which went 1-1, still with a shot for a county championship in 2020.

“We got the coaches to rank the teams one through 12, we'll go with the golf score, and that's how we'll get the fourth place team,” Hubbard said. “We'll look through it, composite the scores and see who is getting in there.”

Three of the teams vying for the county championship are set, beginning with Hudson (15-3), which won 25-19, 25-22 over Madison, which had won in straight sets over Adrian (5-10) 25-9, 25-17, before holding off the Maples in the second set of their match to take a 25-14, 26-24 victory.

The Tigers were led by two-time defending County Player of the Year Callie Bauer, who posted team highs in kills (32) and digs (25), while Tristen Cole added 45 assists with Keely Hinzman finishing with 13 kills and a team-high five blocks and Ali Marry's four aces leading Hudson.

The Wildcats went 3-0 at Lenawee Christian to punch their ticket into the finals at home, downing Morenci 25-7, 25-11 and the hosting Cougars 22-25, 25-16, 25-14 before rolling past Addison 25-22, 25-23, to continue their strong 2020 campaign and giving Onsted a chance to win the title in its own gym.

Leading Onsted (24-2) Saturday was Mya Hiram with a team-high 28 kills, 20 digs, 15 points and three aces, while Kayla Ross posted a team-high 28 digs and 30 points along with 12 kills and four aces on 39-of-41 serving to send the defending county champions home with a chance to hold onto their title for another season despite being at a sizable deficit in terms of court time as opposed to last season.

“It's nice to be able to go back and defend (the title),” Hubbard said. “It's difficult, our biggest thing is we're not playing as many sets (this season) because everything's a quad meet, but our talent is there and they're pushing. When we started this, we wanted to go as far as we could, and then we lost the first match to Manchester and it was like 'what the heck?', but ever since, we've only lost the one to Mason. We keep pushing and trying to get better with each match and do what we can because we're not getting as many matches.”

Tecumseh punched its ticket to Onsted by going 3-0 at home, downing Britton Deerfield in straight sets 25-15, 25-22 before winning a pair of three-set matches over Blissfield (25-20, 20-25, 15-13) and Clinton (25-17, 25-15, 15-11) to give themselves a locked-in chance at a county title.

Tecumseh (9-6) was led by Lyndsey Benschoter's 53 assists and five aces, while Jada Moore had a team-high 16 kills and three aces, with Jaden Benschoter tacking on 12 kills and a team-high 10 blocks.

“County tournament champs has always been one of our goals,” said Tecumseh coach Kelsey Lindquist. “We talked a lot about (Saturday) that step one was winning all three matches today in order to go on to play possibly for a county tournament championship too. Clinton and Blissfield are great teams and we had to play well to advance, so we're happy with that.”